Working the Night Shift as a Correctional Officer in Prison (C.O.P.)

After such a horrible time with my breakdown I never wanted to go through that kind of episode again. To help with this they put me on medication that seemed to help tremendously. I went back to work in San Diego in January 1988 and because they knew somewhat of my situation, or at least I think they did, they put me on graveyard (1st watch) so that I would not have to deal with the inmate population too much since most of them would be asleep at that time. They also gave me one of the easiest jobs on the graveyard shift and that was to open the individual gates for the staff who were going to the four inmate yards they had. This was located in the center of the institution in an area that was called the "Plaza." It was also the area where the "Watch Office" was at to sign in and other supervisory offices for all of the administrative staff.

It was during this time that I was able to work with another officer, Officer David (name changed)who was a part of the union at that time and I knew him from when he worked at CIW ( California Institution for Women) He knew of my concerns of getting back to CIW and that it really was a hardship case and that he knew my wife was very, very sick with her Lupus and was in and out of the hospital. I really don't remember if he knew about my case or not or if I had even shared that with him but he was doing it more for wife and not so much for me. For he knew I should be there, close to home, since she had a five month old baby she was caring for as well being sick herself.

As time went on things just started to happen and it looked like the opportunity of going back was looking good, even though it was a long drawn out process. Things really started to progress when the Superintendent (now called the Warden) was replaced with another person. I don't know if she left on her own or if she was fired but for one thing was certain it was an answer to my prayers. With the new Warden in place and the help of Officer David, I was able to go up and interview with her and come home to my family. This took until June for this to happen so I was almost at the men's prison in San Diego for a whole year. Luckily, only a month of that was with actual inmate contact, so I am grateful that I was able to work 1st watch while I worked at the men's prison.

The only bad thing about working the graveyard shift that is that it really messes with ones sleep patterns. During the week I was up all night and then on my weekends I had to sleep like a normal person. When I went back to work from my days off it was really hard to keep awake, especially on that first night coming back. If it wasn't for the difficulty of staying awake I may have requested to stay on nights the rest of my career. However, I cherished the job and did not want to get caught sleeping when and if that ever did happen to me. There were many of the staff that did fall asleep when they worked nights and some of them got caught and some did not.

I believe I only worked the gates for maybe a couple of months while in San Diego and then I was made a sick relief officer (worked for those that called in sick.) This was still at nights so it really was not a bad position, that is, most of the time. I got to work in almost every position in the yard and as rookie I had a few problems when it came time to counting the inmates at night. Sometimes it was very hard to see them because they were all covered up and when I would ask them to show skin (policy was to see live breathing flesh) I would lose track of what my count was and sometimes would have to start over. The inmates would be mad when you woke them up, but they knew the procedures so they really had no excuse of getting mad.

When I worked the gate that was the best position because I had no contact with the inmates but just with staff letting them in and out. It was really boring at times, most of the time, I should say, because the staff only came in, and left, at the at the beginning of the shift and at the end of the shift so there was not too much going on in between, except maybe supervisors going in and out. About the most exiting thing I saw working the gate was a dead rattlesnake that someone must have killed previous to coming in to work. And I'm not talking about an inmate, this was a real snake.

When the exciting day came to go back to CIW I was really excited about it until when I found out that my first post would be working in a tower. Now I had worked in a few towers in San Diego when people had called in sick, but it was different just working one day, here and there, opposed to working there everyday. Now I wasn't too excited about the idea, but at the same time I was grateful of being back home with my family.

The first month or so was not too bad working in the tower but after awhile it gets very monotonous and very, very boring. At least at the gates in San Diego I was not confined to one small area and I was free to walk around. With the towers you have very little area to walk. As well, per policy, you can not sleep, of course, plus you are not to bring in any reading materials, portable TV's, radio's, cell phones or anything else that would be a distraction. It was expected of us to watch the fence line for 8 hours straight or 16 hours if you get ordered over (mandatory overtime.) This, in the early part of my career, I had to do several times and in fact I was ordered over 4 times in one month and volunteered another 6 times for a total of 80 hours of overtime. This was not uncommon for a lot of staff and many staff because of all of the overtime made more the Warden makes, since the Warden is on salary.

Now I have to finally admit that I am not perfect and as I was working all of those hours there were times that I would fall off to sleep. This happened, sometimes, while I was standing up, so rather than getting hurt I would sit in the office chair provided for us and fall asleep. It would only be, usually, a few minutes at a time, because I had that fear if I completely went to sleep I would wake up and there would be a hole in the fence and an inmate missing. Luckily, no one ever escaped while I was in the tower nor did I ever get caught, cause I was always alert to the sound of the Sergeants vehicle coming around and it would always wake me up.

After the fourth month I was going stir crazy and I had to think of someway to get a post change and I figured they would not change me just because I didn't like the towers. This may, as I think about it now, been the wrong way of doing it, but I thought at the time it was the only way of getting out of the tower. That was, to go to my Psychiatrist, tell him of my situation and that I was working around weapons in an armed post. I had attempted suicide just a year earlier, so I figured if he knew I was working around weapons that would not be a good idea for me to work in the tower. He wrote the Captain a letter and before I knew it I was on the yard working in a housing unit.

I am really lucky the plan didn't backfire on me because I guess they could have said that since I couldn't work in armed post then I wasn't qualified to be a peace officer. I don't know for sure what was said in the letter, but maybe it said something in affect that this could be a temporary thing, to come out of the tower. I really don't know because a couple of years later I was back working in the towers but not on the grave yard shift. It could have been, as well, that the Captain we had at the time went to another institution and it was not passed down about my situation. I really don't know what happened but again I am so thankful I was not fired for having my psychiatrist bringing me out of the tower.

I worked another eight months on graveyard shift before I had enough time to come off and go on dayshift for awhile. I never did go back on graveyard except when I had to do overtime.

Even though it may seem like it would be easier working nights at times it is not when it comes to adjusting to the different sleeping patterns. I was just glad that I finally got enough time in that I didn't have to work graveyard on a regular basis.